How do you pronounce cthulhu?

[Rÿcher]

I say it "ka-thoo-loo". It's probably wrong. It could be "kith-oo-loo"

 

[Brendan Moody]

From S.T. Joshi's H.P. Lovecraft: A Life:
"In various letters Lovecraft appears to give somewhat different pronunciations; his canonical utterance, however, occurs in 1934:

...the word is supposed to represent a fumbling human attempt to catch the phonetics of an absolutely non-human word. The name of the hellish entity was invented by beings whose vocal organs were not like man's, hence it has no relation to the human speech equipment. The syllables were determined by a physiological equipment wholly unlike ours, hence could never be uttered perfectly by human throats... The actual sound-- as nearly as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it-- may be taken as something like Khlul'-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in full; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, hence the h represents the guttural thickness.

...The one pronunciation we can definitively rule out... is Ka-thul-hoo. [Donald] Wandrei states that he had initially pronounced it this way in Lovecraft's presence and received nothing but a blank stare in return."

 

[Misfit Toy]

"Fred"

 

[Christopher]

The one time I've actually heard it spoken aloud was in an episode of the animated The Real Ghostbusters called "The Collect Call of Cthulhu." There, they pronounced it essentially as "k'too-loo." So I've always interpreted the "th" not as a voiceless dental fricative as in English, but as an aspirated T (voiceless alveolar plosive) as in the Ancient Greek pronunciation of the letter theta. Same with the lh; I treat it as an aspirated L.

 

[The Borg Queen]

K'fu'lu

 

[Klaus]

I try not to.

I once had to make a saving throw against one of his tentacles because someone said his name aloud. ....didn't seem worth the risk after that.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Floyd.

Hmm, what's that I see moving behind me, out of the corner of my eye?

 

[grabmygoblin]

"kith-oo-loo"

I try not to.

probably the wisest move.

 

[zenophite]

I don't know but that's who I'm voting for come November.

 

[Sephiroth]

*breaks out Necronomicon* Sagath Cthilhu omnomibus norac avados zen k'avadatha n'guc'to KATHA'BBATH'ANADA'RA

 

[captcalhoun]

Kuh-thoo-loo

that's how someone pronounced it to me, who knew Lovecraft more'n me...

 

[zenophite]

*breaks out Necronomicon* Sagath Cthilhu omnomibus norac avados zen k'avadatha n'guc'to KATHA'BBATH'ANADA'RA

You said it ALL FUCKING WRONG! gods damn amateurs....

 

[Gepard]

I've always pronounced it "Kthul-hoo." (Kind of swallowing the "kuh" and "thul" sounds together.)

The actual sound-- as nearly as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it-- may be taken as something like Khlul'-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in full; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, hence the h represents the guttural thickness.

I think I'd need to hear somebody pronounce that before I could even begin to imagine what it's supposed to sound like!

 

[The Borg Queen]

*breaks out Necronomicon* Sagath Cthilhu omnomibus norac avados zen k'avadatha n'guc'to KATHA'BBATH'ANADA'RA

Isn't that Klingon for "I want your babies"?

 

[Sephiroth]

^^aparently i opened a portal to limbo over NYC

 

[JuanBolio]

How do you pronounce mighty Cthulhu's name? You don't. He eats you before you can utter a syllable.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Sulu

 

[ELURIA]

How do you pronounce cthulhu?

Simple. You don't !

If you know what's good for you...

 

[dragunzng]

How do you pronounce cthulhu?

Simple. You don't !

If you know what's good for you...

I've pronounced it multiple times while reading this thread and nothing's happened to *hurk!*

 

[Klaus]

^^aparently i opened a portal to limbo over NYC

No wonder no one noticed!